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“Let us
put it very simply: man needs God, otherwise he remains without
hope.” That statement by Benedict XVI, made in his 2007
encyclical, Spe Salvi (“Saved In Hope”), serves well as a prologue to today’s
readings. Each has something to say about the virtue of hope, which
is, the Holy Father notes, closely intertwined with the virtue of
faith, “so much so that in several passages the words ‘faith’
and ‘hope’ seem interchangeable.”

Both 1 and
2 Maccabees describe the Jewish struggle against the political
domination and religious suppression inflicted, first, by the
Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt and, later, by the Seleucid dynasty of
Syria. The story from 2 Maccabees of the seven brothers took place
sometime in the early to mid-second century B.C. The story
demonstrates, rather dramatically, that some just Israelites would
rather die than renounce or “transgress the laws of our ancestors.”
This resolve was based in their belief that “the King of the
world”—that is, God—“will raise us up to live again forever.”
One of the brothers spoke directly and passionately about his hope of
“being raised up by him”, while flatly declaring that his
oppressors would not experience resurrection from death to life.

The
passage’s description of martyrdom and the Jewish belief in a
future resurrection of God’s faithful ones, provides some helpful
context for Jesus’ teachings about the afterlife. The Sadducees
were an influential group that arose within Palestinian Judaism
around the time recorded in 2 Maccabees. During Jesus’ earthly
life, the high priest and the temple authorities were Sadducees (Acts
4:1; 5:17). They were distinguished by a staunch, even radical,
adherence to the laws of Moses alone; they believed the Torah did not
allow for or teach the resurrection from the dead, a belief held by
the Pharisees.

The
Sadducees presented a dilemma to Jesus based on the levirate law
(Deut. 25:5), which stated that if a married man died childless, his
brother was obligated to marry his widow. Jesus pointed out there is
no marriage in the afterlife because there is no death or procreation
in that state. He then went to the heart of the matter, which had to
do with God’s nature. Having called out to Moses from the burning
bush, God declared: “I am the God of your father, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” pointed out that
those men “all are alive” to God, for he is the source and
realization of an eternal hope.

The
Bible is the story of God calling man
out of sin and to his eternal home. Throughout the Old Testament
there is a growing awareness of a hope for the Kingdom of God and an
eternal, perfect covenant to be established by the Messiah. While
always rooted in dependence upon God and His promises, that hope
often focused on material prosperity and freedom from oppression.
This hope was strongly connected to wisdom, which is a trusting
knowledge of God’s goodness and faithfulness. “Know that wisdom
is such to your soul,” wrote the author of Proverbs, “if you find
it, there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off”
(Prov. 24:14). There was a gradual realization of an afterlife beyond
the earthly realm. “Hope in the bodily resurrection of the dead
established itself as a consequence intrinsic to faith in God as
creator of the whole man, soul and body” (CCC,
992).

Hope
is central to the Christian life. It is also distinctive, a mark of
the uniqueness of the Christian view of life, death, and history. The
Church has always taught that if death was not and cannot be
conquered, there is no hope. And if there is no hope beyond this
temporal realm, there is no meaningful life in this world. Any vision
of life that ignores the reality of mortality cannot be a source of
authentic hope, for such hope is a grace and a source of everlasting
encouragement.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the November 7,
2010, issue of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)